New master plan in development for Hot Springs Memorial Field
The new master plan being developed for Hot Springs Memorial Field promises to sustain the flow of federal and state support that allows the airport to maintain independence from the city general fund.
The airport’s current master plan has helped it reap more than $12 million in federal and state funding since 2005, according to an update on the formation of the new plan the Hot Springs Board of Directors heard last month.
Suzanne Peyton, a planner in the aviation department for Garver LLC, the engineering firm developing the Federal Aviation Administration-funded plan for the city, told the board identifying priorities and detailing how to implement those priorities over a period of 10 to 20 years are a requirement for FAA funding.
“Once that’s all done and gets published in a set of airport plans, it goes on file with the FAA,” she said. “That’s how you get projects funded. If it’s not on your airport layout plan, you’re not going to get funding for it from the FAA.”
Information presented to the board showed Southern Airways Express transported more than
2,800 passengers from the airport last year, with a 20-percent increase in commercial air traffic expected by 2022. The Department of Transportation selected Southern Airways, a Memphis-based commuter airline, as the city’s Essential Air Service provider last year, contracting it to provide two daily nonstop, round-trip flights on nine-passenger Cessna 208 Caravans to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport for $2,378,312 a year.
The EAS program subsidizes commercial flights that connect small airports to large or medium hubs.
The two-year contract expires in February. Airport Director Glen Barentine said DOT sent out a request for proposals last month. Airlines have until later this month to respond, he said. The city attributed a yearto-date increase of 52 percent in fuel sales to Southern Airway’s presence at the airport.
Garver projects the 78 aircraft currently based at the airport will grow to 108 by 2022. Barentine said 30 are on a waiting list for hangar space.
The airport is busiest during Arkansas Derby week, Garver said, when a flight lands or takes off every three minutes during peak hours. Peak day operations are projected to exceed
200 by 2022. The airport has four runways, including one that can accommodate instrument landings. All instrument landings are made from the western approach.
“On a good, busy day, you can expect 189 operations,” Peyton told the board. “An operation is a takeoff or landing. On a busy day you could need to park up to 35 aircraft on the ramp, which is a lot. That’s exciting for Hot Springs. The airport collects revenue every time people buy fuel and use their services.”
Garver said tenants focused on aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul are not a good fit for the airport. The 55,000-squarefoot hangar vacated by AAR Corp. in 2015 is still in search of a lessee, Barentine said, and is being used for storage in the interim.
AAR had a contract to repair short-to-medium-haul passenger jets. Barentine said those kinds of contracts are generally shortterm, leaving airports in a lurch when the contract ends.
“You don’t want maintenance facilities that are beholden to a particular airline or airframe,” he said. “You want something that is stable and long term. AAR had a short-term contract to fix a certain type of jet for a certain amount of time. When the contract is up, they’re looking for the next one, and they may not get it.”